


But It's the Only Game in Town

by scioscribe



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Genre: Antagonism, Developing Relationship, Flirting, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: Han and Lando keep running into each other.  Sometimes it's even deliberate.





	But It's the Only Game in Town

“Is there some reason why you keep coming back here?” Lando said.

Han shrugged.  “I don’t really know a lot of people.”

“It’s a big galaxy.  Go meet some.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“Yes,” Lando said.  “I am absolutely still mad at you.  Why are you making that face at me, don’t make that face at me.”

“I could be mad at you too, you know.  You left us stranded high and dry, you cheated me once and _tried_ to cheat me twice, you—”

Lando smirked.  “But you’re _not_ mad at me.  So that still leaves you here, wanting something from me.  Still leaves me not wanting to give it to you.”

“Come on,” Han said.  “Maybe I have something you want, too.”

Lando’s eyes flitted over him for a split second; he smiled a smile that could have frosted glass.  “Yeah.  My ship.”

“You just won’t let that go,” Han said.  “That’s a weakness in your character.”

They did that for about an hour and then somehow Han found himself buying Lando a drink, something tall and violet with a citrus kick to it and a few booze-soaked white flower petals floating around with the ice.  He’d tasted it because he wanted to know if it was any good or if Lando had just made him order it because it was something called a Three-Hour Lick and Lando just liked screwing with him.  He’d tasted it because he’d never had anything with a garden bobbing around in it before.  He’d tasted it for the look on Lando’s face.

“Hand it over,” Lando said.  “You think I won’t want it anymore just because you slobbered on it?  I need to teach you something about possessions, you know, things that are mine—”  He drew a line in the air and waved his fingers around on one side of it.  “And things that are yours.  “This right here is mine.”

“Yeah, I just like getting a little taste of things,” Han said, passing him the glass.

Lando sipped from it, smiling up at him.  “Oh, you’re trying to flirt.  This is you flirting.  That’s adorable, I don’t think I’ve ever really done business with a virgin before.”

“I’m not a _virgin_ ,” Han said, before realizing that however true that was, there was no way to say it without it somehow being embarrassing.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Lando said.  “I’ll be gentle with you.  Okay, what’s the score?”

Han blinked.  “Wait, _are_ we flirting?”

Lando waved his hand.  “I don’t mix business with pleasure.  And I’m still mad at you.  Just tell me what the game is.”

“I can mix business with pleasure,” Han said.  “I have really good compartmentalization.”

“So help me, Han, I will get up right now and leave if you don’t start explaining what the hell it is you want to steal or smuggle or who you want to con or whatever brings you here.”

“Fine,” Han said.  “ _Be_ that way.”

They stole a collection of unpolished gemstones.  Easy work, in and out.  The cut was more complicated.

“I know I didn’t have to let him have forty percent,” Han said.

Chewie raised additional mathematical concerns.

“Yeah, I know that works out to him getting more than a third, it can come out of my share.  It took some doing to talk him into this, you know.”

“I’m a hard sell,” Lando said.  “And your boy Han here doesn’t exactly have a silver tongue.”  He pocketed the credits and smiled at the both of them.  Han didn’t trust that smile as far as he could throw it, which was to say that he knew that any smart person would know it ought to be biologically fucking impossible to trust a smile like that.

“If you ask me,” he said to Chewbacca later, “I’m the one getting off easy here.  I mean, it’d be a treat to get me into bed, you can bet on that.  But you’d have to be out of your mind to fling Lando Calrissian around the room.  That guy’s—I mean, that guy’s just completely unreliable.”

Chewbacca roared.

“That’s right,” Han said.  “You and me, buddy, that’s where the heart of this venture really lies.  Nothing mucking up the works.”

*

Of course, Han was quick to point out a month later, sometimes you just had to dance with whoever was at the party.

“This is not a party,” Lando said.  “This is a dungeon.  I’m concerned for you if you don’t know the difference between a party and a dungeon.”

“The drinks would probably be better if we were at a party,” Han said.

Lando sighed in agreement, stretching out as much as the manacles would allow.  “You remember that Three-Hour Lick you bought for me back on Hellebria?  I could do with one of those right about now.”

Han had been fiddling with a flexible pin he had under some flesh-tape on his wrist, but now he stopped, his thumbnail still poised against the adhesive.  He still thought about it sometimes, yeah, the way the purple drink had washed over the petals, making them look bruised, the way Lando had raised his eyebrows when Han had taken a sip.  Chewbacca said you always remembered the ones who got away.  He’d said it while patting Han’s shoulder and consoling him on Qi’ra, but the point, Han figured, still applied.  There were a lot of ways to miss your chance.

“That did taste good,” he said.

Lando looked over at him.  In the semi-darkness of the dungeon, his smile was a hell of a lot more convincing, if you wanted to be convinced.  “Every last minute of it.”

Han got the manacles off and undid Lando’s, too, which required a good bit of time standing in front of him fiddling around with the cuffs.

“Don’t get nervous,” Lando said.

“Maybe you should be nervous I’m going to leave you here.”

“Nah,” Lando said.  “Because if you do, I’m just going to tell everyone we know—and apparently we only know the same three people—that you broke your cute little lockpicking device off because you just couldn’t get the job done.”

“You couldn’t tell them if you were dead,” Han said, just to be an ass, but then he thought about Beckett dying in his arms, about the fireball that had taken Val, about Rio in the pilot’s seat, L3’s brain in Lando’s hand while it had probably still been warm.  His fingers slackened.

“Hey.  Han.”

“No, it’s just—I didn’t mean to say that.”  And he hadn’t meant to say _that_.  His face felt rubbery and cold.

“Don’t worry about it, just look at me.”

Han looked.

“You’ve got this,” Lando said.  His eyes were perfectly calm.  He could have been on a beach somewhere, the water lapping in around his ankles, the Empire at least two worlds away.  “What, you think you’re some kind of bad luck charm now?  Don’t get superstitious on me.  If somebody who grew up on Corellia can’t open a pair of cuffs, I’m actually just going to die of surprise, okay?  You’re good.  We’re good.”

“Yeah.”  He twisted the pin.  _Tock_.  “Whoops.”

“You did not just break the pin off inside of my cuffs.  Please tell me you did not just do that.”

“I didn’t just do that,” Han said.  He held up the intact pin.  “I just made a clicking sound with my mouth.”

“You are the worst person in the entire galaxy,” Lando said.  “See if I ever comfort you again.”

“You weren’t comforting me.”  He went back to the lockpicking.  “You were just trying to make sure I didn’t lose it and leave you here.”

The manacles came undone and Lando stepped out of them, rubbing his wrists.  There was a wide, slightly pink-silver burn mark on his neck where one of the guard’s stunners had landed, and Han hadn’t noticed it before, but Lando’s collar must have been chafing it raw.  The cuffs had left bruises and scrapes on his wrists, too: he must have been pulling against them harder than Han had ever realized.  Okay, he thought, so that was something to know.  Lando could get the jitters after all.

“Let’s get out of this shithole,” Lando said.  “I hate underground places so damp you could see to read by the glow of the algae on the walls.”

“Got it,” Han said.  “No more underground dungeons.”

“No, no, no.  No more you doing jobs that are going to turn out to be the same jobs I’m doing.  You’re about as inconspicuous as a bantha.  I want to be at least a planet away from you at all times.”

“Come on, you don’t mean that.”

“Oh, I mean it,” Lando said.

*

A year after that, Lando found _him_.

“I’m not playing you at sabacc again,” Han said.

“Not me,” Lando said.  “Other people.  Gullible people who are going to be taken in by the fact that you have a naturally confused expression on your face ninety percent of the time.”

“You mean gullible people like you?”

Lando smiled.  “Han, old buddy, first time we played cards?  I didn’t think you didn’t know what you were doing.  I just knew _you_ didn’t know I was cheating.”

“But I did know you were cheating.”

“Only by round two.  Pan-Imperial Sabacc Tournament?  We’ll be in and out.  Those people aren’t going to know what hit them.”

Han had to admit that he liked the idea of strolling into some cream-of-the-crop casino and taking the money of all the robbers and slum lords and red-faced three-barred officers who’d make Corellia a living hell.  Plus, he and Chewie never got to go anywhere nice.  Smuggling kept the _Falcon_ ’s engines lit and her lights on, but it wasn’t like it kept them in silk and shellfish.  They’d been skimping on the liquor for weeks now, stringing along between hauls, even falling on hard times enough to do a spot or two of legitimate work.  The other day, Chewie had even mentioned Qi’ra, that she might have work for them.  Han didn’t want to go back to the yacht and ask.  Didn’t want to see.

“Fine,” Han said.  “Seventy percent.”

“No, you debate the cut _before_ you say you’ll do it, Han, not after.  Now I know you’re gonna take it anyway.  You and Chewie get _half_.”

“We each get twenty-five and you walk off with a whole fifty?  I don’t think so.”

“Baby, baby, we never used to fight about money.  Fine, we split it by thirds.”

“And Chewie does the math.”

Chewbacca roared agreement.

Lando looked at him, impressed.  “Accounting, huh?  You’ve got a lot of layers to you, Chewie.  I like that in a partner.  You ever ditch Han, you let me know.”

“He’s not going to ditch me!”

“He sounded like he was considering it,” Lando said.  He clapped Han on the shoulder.  “But come on, lover boy, we have to make you look presentable for high society.  I’m not having anybody on my arm who looks like he just crawled out of a sewer.”

That was unfair.  The sewer job had been months ago.  Anyway, Han had a more pressing concern.  “What do you mean, on your arm?”

“Pan-Imperial Sabacc Partners Tournament.  Like I said.”  He shrugged in Chewie’s direction.  “I’d bring you in on the action on the floor, big guy, but we’re talking big-time Imperial territory here.  Somebody could get after you, and we don’t want that.”

It might be a copout to convince himself that Lando could talk anybody into anything, but hell, it couldn’t be that far off.  Qi’ra had curled her lips around his name like it’d even _tasted_ sweet.  So it wasn’t any kind of extraordinary susceptibility that put Han in Lando’s huge walk-in closet a couple of hours later.  It just wasn’t.

Han sniffed.  “Do you have a scent diffuser in here?”

“What, like there’s something wrong with wanting all my clothes to carry just a hint of the best cologne the galaxy has to offer?”  He slung a forest-green cape off its hanger and handed it to Han.  “Don’t spill anything on this.”

“I don’t want to wear a cape.”

“You really do.”  Lando fingered the black silk trim on his own, as if to say, _See how good I look in mine_.

“No, because then we’re just going to look like one of those couples that dresses alike.  It’s weird.”

Lando pursed his lips.  “Fine.  Point.  But try it on anyway.”

“What?  Why?”

“Han, could you for once in your entire life just do—”

Han pulled the cape over his shoulders and fastened the clasps into the wide collar of his shirt.  It hung awkwardly on him, not like it did on Lando, both because he wasn’t the one it’d been tailored for and because he hadn’t had his shirt altered to smoothly hide the clasps, so he looked, he thought, staring at his reflection, like he was in some kind of cheap disguise.  He waited for Lando to dig into him for it—probably that was why Lando had wanted him in it in the first place—but Lando was quiet.  Their eyes met in the mirror.

“Hey, baby,” Lando said.  “Look at you.”  He took another step behind Han and put his hand on Han’s hip, like they were about to dance.  “I love it when people look like me.  Of course, _this_ ,” letting his hand drop a little lower, to Han’s holster, “this is all you.  It’s throwing off the lines.”

Han looked at Lando’s fingers spread apart on his thigh.  “That’s kind of what I do best.”

Lando chuckled: a reverberation of warm air against Han’s ear.

“I guess you’re not mad at me anymore,” Han said.

“Oh, I’m always mad at you.  I’m just trying to get into character.  See, you and me, we’re supposed to be in love.”

“And you think that’d be easier if I looked like you.”

“I know it would be.”  He gave Han a little nudge and Han braced himself against the mirror, his breath a sudden fog against the glass.  Lando traced a heart in it and then laid his finger against Han’s lips.  “But when did I ever get what I want, except always.  And here you are.”

He finally, fucking _finally_ , flattened his palm against Han’s cock through his pants and Han let out a little moan, bumping his hips forward.

Lando pulled back.  “That,” he said, “is for stealing my ship.”

Han felt like his brain had just been sucked out of an airlock.  “For… what?”

“After you didn’t even pitch in for the repair bill for the hell you put her through.”

Han looked at himself in the mirror, flushed and hard and disheveled and now, fucking _blue-balled_.

He could hold a grudge for this—he was totally going to hold a grudge for this—but he could also laugh about it, and he had the feeling he knew which reaction would get further under Lando’s skin.  So he smirked; turned around and blew Lando a little kiss.

“You got me.”

“I did,” Lando said.  “You don’t look like you appreciate that, though.”

“Oh, I appreciate it, _baby_.”

One side of Lando’s mouth turned up.  “That’s cute.  You’re going to try to fuck _me_ over now, aren’t you?  You really think you’ve got what that takes?”

“Does it take the _Falcon?_ Because I’ve got the _Falcon_.  She used to be yours, right?”  He patted Lando’s chest.  “Come on.  Let’s go play some cards.”

*

Then there was the time they ran into each other on Tal V, both of them bidding on the same shipment of spice.

“I hate to speak ill of a competitor,” Lando said, “but everyone knows Han Solo has a conscience.  Consciences get in the way, which is why I made sure not to renew mine after I lost it on Kessel.  Things on my end run clean as a whistle now.”

“Things on my end run pretty clean too and you know it,” Han said.

“Things on your end run clean because they get oiled with blood.”

Han remembered Lando’s eyes on his in that damp little dungeon, Lando scoffing at the idea that Han was bad luck, and he couldn’t manage to think of any kind of comeback.  The deal went to Lando, the one in the conversation who could actually talk, and Han stalked off, the back of his neck burning, anger tight in his jaw.

“Han!”

No way was he stopping.

“Han, dammit, just listen to me for a minute!”

He smacked his hand against the elevator panel and spun around.  “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”

“Look,” Lando said, “I’m sorry.  I really am.  I’m having—”  He sighed, his shoulders bowing down inwards.  “I’m having kind of a bad month.”

He did look tired, Han reluctantly noticed, tired and a little gray-faced, like he’d been sick.  And he’d brought up L3, which he only ever did when he was in the mood to open up old wounds.

“Do the job with me,” Lando said.  “Even thirds, Chewie does the math.  Except I’m deducting that cape you stole from me, you son-of-a-bitch, that was my favorite.”

Han exhaled through his nose, a long breath like he’d rethink his whole life while he was letting it out.  He didn’t quite get there.  “Fine.  But not the part about the cape.  I earned that—pain and suffering charge for that little stunt you pulled.”

“It’s sweet that you want something to remember me by,” Lando said.  “I’ll pick you and Chewie up later.”

The elevator chimed insistently.  Han stuck his foot in it and yelled at Lando’s retreating back, “You know, you could just admit that you like seeing me!”

Just before the doors closed and separated them, he heard Lando call back, “Where would be the fun in that?”

“Fun!” Han shouted at the elevator doors.  “ _Fun_ would be the fun in that!”

*

Three-inches tall, fuzzy, and mostly blue—Han hated holograms—but still recognizably Lando.  “I’m taking a second pass at retirement.  What do you say you and Chewbacca fly out my way and have a few drinks on me to celebrate the end of an era?  Hey, you never know, it might even actually take this time.  Stranger things have happened.  Anyway, I’m sending you the coordinates.”

“You trust him?” Han asked Chewie, pausing the recording.  “Because free drinks always make me a little suspicious.”

Chewie liked Lando, though; liked him to an extent Han thought was actually a little disloyal, considering the number of times Lando had cockteased him, ripped him off, or otherwise left him high and dry.  But friendships in their line of work were rare and strange.  You put up with a lot.  And maybe, just maybe, you showed up for retirement parties, even if the people throwing them weren’t even thirty-five.  And you were broke and looking at a lifetime inside your ship’s walls, hauling from point A to point B, smiling through checkpoints.

So, yeah, free drinks sounded good.

Lando’s place—for the moment—was on Luck’s Run, a planet that had been good for gold mining a couple thousand years ago and good only for the tourists and casinos ever since; it was full of people in shimmery, color-shifting clothes and feathered jackets, full of people losing their money.  It made Han hungry, and he knew there was no way getting off this place without hitting the tables just a little.  He had the dice in his pocket.  He was feeling it, it was his night.

But then again, for all he knew, Lando owned the casino.  It wouldn’t be the first time.  There’d been Corbin, the moons of Wepi, the—

“You made it,” Lando said, coming out to hug him, and Han stopped looking for an angle.  For the first time in his life, he was pretty sure there wasn’t one.  It was in Lando’s eyes: so much more at ease than the last time Han had seen him.

Han hugged him.  “See you getting out of a life of crime?  I couldn’t miss that.”

“Well, it’s been done before and done badly, but I thought I’d give it another go.”  He handed Han a flute of something fizzy and toasted him.  “Cheers.”

“To getting out alive,” Han said.  _To fun._

Lando’s smile wasn’t one he’d seen before.  “To pleasure over business.”

His glass clicked against Han’s, crystal on crystal, a single note like a song.

“Hey,” Han said.  “You _are_ in a good mood.”

“I really am.  It’s good to breathe free, you know?  No more dungeons, no more bad jobs, no more uncertainty.  Just me and the good life.”

“Well, I brought you a retirement present,” Han said.  “I guess you can hang onto it even when you wind up back in the muck with the rest of us.”  He passed it over.

Lando popped the paper off with his thumb and his smile got even wider.  He pulled the green cape out of the box, inch by inch.  “I’ll be damned.  You really did keep it.”

 _Yeah, and believe me, I gave it a good wash before I wrapped it up for you._ “Yours again now, though.  But only since you said it was your favorite, because you _did_ owe it to me.  I’m just being generous.”

“That’s good of you, Han,” Lando said, and embraced him again.  With his mouth against Han’s ear, he said, “It wasn’t my favorite until you wore it.  That shade of green, it isn’t even my color.  It was always going to be for you.”

“For your game,” Han whispered back.

Lando shook his head.  This smile, Han knew a little better.  It said he was lying, even if it didn’t say how.  “Call it half and half.”

“Aww, you like me.”

“I like how you look in my cape,” Lando said dryly.  “Let’s not get carried away.”

“So—”  Han raised his eyebrows, moved his hand back and forth between them.

“Wow.  It’s amazing to me that we haven’t been having sex this entire time.  How could I have possibly resisted your wit and charm?”

“I don’t think you resisted it that well,” Han said.

“You know,” Lando said, “a huge upside to sleeping with you is that if I ever _do_ get back on a job, I have a really good reason not to work with you again.”

“You always had a really good reason not to work with me.”  Hey, he didn’t get to be the sexual hold-out very often, he was going to get some mileage out of it before he gave it up.

“I don’t know why I like you,” Lando said with a sigh.

Han leaned in and kissed him.  Lando’s mouth was hot and it tasted like Han had always thought it would, like that long-ago Three-Hour Lick, like every good and cheap-hot thing that had always been just a little bit out of reach.  “Yeah, you do.”  He thought that was a cool thing to say.

Lando leaned into him.  “Well,” he said, to Han’s surprise.  “Sometimes I do.”


End file.
